Mr Harrison will in a few days unite with me in making a report of the result of our examination of Central Park, made this week at the request of the West Side Association and the Torrey Club and as I was assured with your cordial sanction. It is delayed by Mr Harrison’s occupation at Albany and I do not know precisely what he will be disposed to say. I may privately assure you however, that, provided the probable intention to liberally replant many places where the old plantations had been hopelessly ruined by failure of timely thinning, is to be promptly and largely carried out, we saw no thinning that was not most desirable. The park is in extreme need of a great deal more of the same work and there is no {possible} way in which it can now be as much improved as in taking out poor vegetation, replacing it with good and in substituting low bodies of foliage of shrubs and vines for turf where turf, even with very costly maintenance, must be either very shabby or very incongruous with the general character of the associated scenery.

We saw no one and have had no recent communication with any of the park people and shall simply adapt for our report what seems the most natural assumption of your intentions in this respect.

I write this because this is the precise moment of all the year when the greatest liberality and energy is needed in the management of the plantations and if Profr Sterns’s alleged expert advice has had the {slightest} weight with [628]you I should like to do all in my power promptly to counteract it. We shall report formally to Mr Van Rensselaer.

Yours Truly